Tree Palace (17 page)

The police hadn’t noticed the chandelier. Shane was arrested and Fowler and Dench accompanied him to the house to dress.

It wasn’t until they were waiting on the step that they saw it. Fowler heard tinkling and thought it a problem in his ears. He dug out some wax with his little finger but the sound kept going and he looked up in the trees. He squinted and caught sight of sparkling among the branch-sprouting branches. He walked over to where the ropes were. He put his hands on his hips and laughed. ‘Will you look at this!’

‘I’ll get it down,’ Dench said.

Fowler held up a hand to stop him. ‘Get a photograph first. It’ll give the magistrate a giggle.’ He kept looking up, agape. ‘Now that is something to behold. Quite something.’

19

Shane was placed in a cell at the Barleyville police station and a solicitor, Elisha Kay, was called up from Stawell to give him advice. A woman young enough to make Shane question the point of having her. ‘Can’t I get someone older? I got rights to see a grownup lawyer.’

She may have looked no more than fifteen but she stared him down through round red glasses and for one so young had a world-weary, cynical tone. She said if he didn’t like her service free of charge, courtesy of Legal Aid, she’d be happy to get him a city Queen’s Counsel. If he could afford it.

That set him back in his chair. They were in the station’s interview room and he liked sitting at the table, the centre of attention. He was an important man. It made him formal in bearing: preferring Miss Kay to saying Elisha.

She said ‘miss’ was not twenty-first century and she preferred Elisha. He said sorry but kept on with ‘miss’ anyway a few times not from rudeness so much as nerves.

He didn’t like that she had a file opened concerning him. Files made a man feel followed. He asked to look at it. She spun it with her fingers to face his way. He nodded as if he understood the legal lingo and spun it back and crossed his arms, satisfied.

The police intended opposing bail. Being a trant, a man of no fixed address, Shane was a flight risk in their view. They wanted him remanded.

‘I have a fixed address,’ he said.

‘You rent where you live? You own it?’

‘Not in the strict sense.’

‘You squat. In other words, no fixed address.’ Her middle finger pushed her glasses beyond the bridge of her nose. ‘There’s evidence from an Alfie Tweedie, second-hand dealer. It’s not helpful to us.’

Alfie had dobbed Shane in. The old man admitted ‘selling on’ antique house fittings for Shane but claimed ignorance that they were stolen. He thought they’d been scavenged from rubbish tips and small-town garage sales. He believed in the preservation of rural history and would not defile his country’s cultural assets.

‘That’s bullshit,’ Shane said, thumping the table, which made Constable Dench open the interview room door and ask, ‘All good?’

‘All good,’ Elisha said.

‘All good,’ Shane said, lifting his hands and placing them softly on his knees. He bowed his head and moaned.

‘Doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit or not. It’s your word against his. And he’s been in local business thirteen years. A member of Rotary. And his wife’s an invalid.’

Alfie had written a statement that he was a victim of intimidation. If not for Shane’s threatening nature he would never have done business with such a person. He was forced into it. A vulnerable old man against a rough-and-ready trant and his ragtag family.

‘My family had nothing to do with this. How many times I got to say?’

He made up his mind there and then not to put up a fight. He would plead guilty and take the rap, the official sole offender. ‘I acted alone. That’s the honest-to-God truth. I’ll sign whatever I got to sign.’

A guilty plea should keep the police happy, she said. ‘Make an example of someone. That’s what they like.’

He’d never been to prison—he always skirted by. If he went there now, so be it. There was pride in having a prison sentence. The kudos of being a martyr for the family, or so he reasoned, smirking at his moral bravery.

What he had going for him, said Elisha, was the absence of violence on his record. He was no thug, just a thief. That she could credibly argue.

‘It’s something I can work with. Get you assessed by a psychologist. Say you’ve got a disorder, a compulsive thief, that sort of thing.’

‘What disorder? I’m no mental case. No one’s fiddling around in my head. I’m no fruit loop.’

‘It’s a routine procedure to win the court over.’

‘Nup. Never. I won’t be made to look stupid.’

Elisha sighed loudly and wrote a note on his file. He craned to read it but couldn’t with the writing upside down.

‘Can you give me some mitigating circumstances?’

‘What you mean?’

‘To win favour with the court. Drink problem? Drugs?’

‘Never touch that shit. Just a social drink.’

‘Family troubles?’

‘All good.’

‘If you could have your partner…what’s her name? Moira?’

‘I said, she’s not involved.’

‘If you could have her write a statement to the court. What a good bloke you are. Good family man. That sort of thing.’

‘Moira can’t write. She can’t read and write. It was like a thing wrong with her.’

‘We can use that. It’s a disability. She relies on you.’

‘And make
her
look stupid?’

Another sigh and pushing up of her glasses. ‘Your brother. Can he make a statement?’

‘I don’t want him roped in by making statements. He’s got asthma and things stir it up.’

‘We can use the asthma. He’s a sick man.’

‘Make him look pathetic?’

‘Your stepdaughter has a baby? If she can come to court—’

‘Not her. She’s got a job now. Boss hears she’s associated, what happens then? That fucks the job up.’ He held up a hand: ‘Sorry for the language.’

She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. She put down her pen and steepled her fingers together. A smile came to one side of her mouth.

‘Very admirable. Not wise, but admirable. Okay then, Mr Admirable, here’s the upshot. You’ll probably get five or six months in jail to be served with the two months suspended sentence you’ve just blown. Seven, eight months in all.’

Shane took a deep breath and raised his chin, defiant. ‘No worries. Piece of piss. Sooner I get it over with the better.’

The Barleyville court only sat fortnightly but St Arnaud was open the next day. Elisha said, ‘I’ll get the ball rolling,’ and shook Shane’s hand. Constable Dench took him into the lock-up. St Arnaud was an hour away, which was good for anonymity. There wouldn’t be publicity in the
Barleyville Gazette
—letters to the editor calling for trants to be run out of town. Just in case, Shane decided he’d go to court alone. Mr Admirable, he said to himself. He enjoyed the title: like having a mission that made a hero of you. As for jail, if this lock-up was an example it wouldn’t kill him. He had a flushing toilet to sit on and contemplate. It was cold steel and lidless but better than home’s. There was a tap to drink from. The bed was narrow and smelled of disinfectant but you wouldn’t have known it was summer from the cool temperature of the walls. A meal was due, he was told. Mr Admirable on holiday, he said out loud.

As the hours dragged on he wasn’t so sure about the worth of his admirable status. The aloneness was a cut-off kind, a pure shunning from the world. He did not have the stomach he thought he did to endure it. He needed Moira to help. Her body to hold and her voice to banter with. He’d have to use her in court after all. And Midge with his asthma. Anything it took to shrink his jail sentence. The high-barred window hardly let in light—he could not see a skerrick of outside. The ceiling shone starkly. He could not sleep. A drunk was shut in next door and screamed and wept and vomited.

By morning Shane regained his nerve. Not all of it but enough to face the day. His cell door was unlocked and Sergeant Fowler said he had visitors. Given his co-operation he’d be allowed a few minutes with them in the interview room.

Moira steered the pram with one hand and carried his cellophaned suit in the other. Midge had his razor and foam and Zara his shaving mirror, which they wouldn’t let him use because of the glass. Rory had his black lace-up shoes. ‘I gave ’em a shine,’ the boy said. They were all dressed neatly to be his entourage. They were sure he’d get off like usual. He’d just apologise and have a lawyer fix things in the way they do.

‘Not this time,’ said Shane. ‘It’s gone too far this time. I’m stuffed.’

Moira told him to stop being down in the mouth.

‘Defeatist,’ Midge called it.

‘Yeah, defeatist,’ she said. ‘Stop being that.’

‘I’m just saying what the lawyer said.’

‘Then get another one. This one must be shoddy.’

‘No, she’s clued up. Alfie’s dropped us in it. The good news is I’ve got the charges all on me. If you all fly under the radar, make no trouble, the coppers promised my lawyer they’d turn a blind eye to you staying on at Tree Palace. Midge, you got to look after things. Put yourself on the rotation. Rory, look out for your mum and don’t give her crap.’

He didn’t want the boy thinking he was frightened: he winked at him and, at the same time, made a clicking sound with his tongue. He hugged Moira and pecked her on the forehead. ‘All I’m worried about is my beautiful Mortlake haul’s gone.’

Then, ‘What I want you to do is go home and let me face this without you lot there.’

‘No,’ said Moira.

‘Yes. And Zara, if anyone asks you: Your stepdad, hasn’t he gone to jail? You say, I have nothing to do with him. He’s not my real father.’

‘That’d be terrible to say that,’ said Moira.

Even Zara agreed it would be wrong. But he kept insisting and extended the advice to Rory.

The boy said he’d never do such a thing. Shane loved him for that and put his arm around him. The hero feeling was back and flooding warmly under his skin.

Fowler came into the room and told them to finish their goodbyes. They did so with Moira wiping her eyes and Midge and Rory shaking Shane’s hand and embracing him briefly, patting his shoulder. Zara nodded her respect for his stubborn authority.

‘I’ll get Elisha to let you know everything. Where I am and all that. It’s all right, Moira. Rory, help your mother wheel the pram.’

20

The sentence was only six months in total because of luck in getting Feather for a magistrate. The usual one was on sick leave and he was filling in. His real name was Finch but he was Feather for his judicial softness. He preferred fines to jail time. And a short amount of jail if jail was needed. ‘I’m sceptical that prison deters the majority of non-violent miscreants.’

It was a favourite phrase of his and he used it in Shane’s case. ‘You’re a public nuisance, there’s no doubt. But the properties you entered for the purposes of stealing were abandoned, not functioning abodes. That’s significant. The stolen goods are, however, estimated at more than five thousand dollars in retail value.’

Shane was sitting next to Elisha and whispered, ‘Five thousand dollars! Jesus, more like eight thousand.’

‘Shh.’ She elbowed him. She stood up and said, ‘As Your Honour pleases’ and other formalities, and told Shane to count his blessings. Then he was handcuffed—he’d not been handcuffed in Barleyville but Elisha said it was for show for the court.

‘Could you let my family know what’s going on?’

She said she’d be happy to ring, but if there was no number they’d have to wait until she had time to write a letter.

Shane nodded his acceptance that she had dealt with him now. He was no longer her priority. It was not her job to run his errands.

She muttered, irritated, and turned his file over to write on the back of it. ‘Listen. I’m going home via Barleyville to see a client. Give me directions to your place.’

She had to draw herself a squiggly map to get the Loop Road turnoff clear. Then the dirt road to Tree Palace.

Elisha stopped writing. ‘Tree what?’

He explained the name and she gave a snorting laugh and said, ‘Love it.’

‘And could you take my coat and tie? Moira’s fussy about keeping them nice.’

‘I’m not your butler.
Jesus
.’

His handcuffs were slipped off for a second while he removed his coat and yanked his tie loose. Then Constable Dench put the handcuffs back on and held him by the top of the arm, a formal reminder that he was not free. They stood waiting up the back of the courtroom for a police car to be brought round. The handcuffs, their tight metal grip, caused Shane to tremble like he had in the pure loneliness of the lock-up. There were people all about but he was no longer among them. He was apart and disallowed.

‘Shane,’ he heard. ‘Shane. Mate.’

It was Jim Tubbs among the minglers in the hall. He was dressed in a suit, too tight around his arms and chest. He wore a tartan tie but the top button on his shirt was undone to let his neck swell out more comfortably.

‘How you been?’

‘Good.’

‘Haven’t seen you since that blue we had.’

‘No.’

‘Keeping out of trouble?’

‘No.’

‘Never mind.’

‘Just got six months.’

‘Shit. Ah, you’ll do that on your ear, won’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

Tubbsy’s ginger hair was combed neatly and wavy. His cheeks had a line of high whiskers where his shaving went to. His false teeth were in.

‘What’s all this?’ Shane grinned.

Tubbsy patted his hair down. ‘Nothing.
Urinating in public
. In the street after the St Arnaud races. I’ll cop a fine. Nothing.’

With the aloneness sickening him Shane wanted to say, It’s really good to see you, Tubbsy. How long should you stay fallen out with someone? There was a time when he’d have said, Keep an eye on things, will you? Make sure Moira’s got money and Midge isn’t crook with his breathing or his hip. He couldn’t do that without Moira’s say-so. And Moira hadn’t shown signs yet of forgiveness for Tubbsy.

‘Anything I can do, Shane?’

‘Nah. All in order. Ta.’

Constable Dench got the signal that the car was ready. He tightened his hold on Shane and pointed for him to walk.

‘Look after yourself, Tubbsy.’